Vegan Calcium

There are many sources of vegan calcium, but as vegans we don’t tend to get our recommended 1000 mg/day. Why is that? And how can you ensure that your vegan bones are strong and healthy without supplements? Hint, this dark oatmeal recipe provides 500 mg!

Guess who finally found an awesome vegan nutrition book at the library? This girl! I just love Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina. I have painstakingly been going through the whole thing, look for deficiencies that I may have. Lucky for me, I’ve already pinpointed a few. Through my years of vegetarianism, I already knew about DHA omega threes and B12 supplementation. From my first week of veganism, I learned about creatine supplementation and the importance of lysine. (Lysine is an essential amino acid that is hard for vegans to get unless they are eating 1.5 cups of beans a day or more. That’s a lot of beans! May I suggest Vega protein shakes, which have all the muscle building amino acids you need?)

However, due to a lot of vegan propaganda, I have been missing one essential vegan mineral: calcium. According to Instagram, PETA, and everyone, vegans are just fine because there is calcium in green vegetables. For the majority of Americans, they are WRONG.

Yes, leafy greens have vegan calcium. However, the recommended dosage is at least 1,000 mg a day. With most greens having about 100mg per cup, that is 10 cups of leafy greens a day! I am sorry, I am a girl on a budget. I get 4-5 servings of fruits and veggies a day, but 10 cups is way over my price limit right now. Maybe one day I will be that cool, but not today.

According to Davis and Melina, the way for vegans to get their calcium is 9 or more servings of fruits and veggies plus fortified foods. We already know that I cannot do the 9 servings of fruits and veggies, yet I also hate relying on fortified foods. Nothing says being vegan is unnatural like having some mineral manually put into my soy milk to make me feel better. I have a better solution.

Good ways to eat blackstrap include marinades, like the one used in this blackstrap tofu, or as in ingredient in homemade Canadian maple baked beans. My favorite way is to mix two tablespoons in with my morning oatmeal instead of table sugar. Combined with two tablespoons of chia seed, a single serving provides over ½ my daily value of calcium (this week’s recipe!). Being on a relatively sugar free diet, blackstrap tastes good and sweet to me. If you are incorporating a lot of sugar into your daily diet, you might also need to sweeten your oatmeal with a little honey or table sugar. Also consider reducing the sugar in your diet, until blackstrap tastes sweet.

Other good non green sources of calcium include chia seeds at 126 mg of calcium per two tablespoons, and almond butter at 86 mg for two tablespoons.

This Week in Updates: It’s hot in here

Unfortunately Sacramento is heating up well over 100 degrees a day. To combat this, I’m sweating a lot and taking multiple showers. Surprisingly being outside doesn’t feel that bad to me. The air circulation and shade in the dry heat feels great! Inside is another story, especially when I’m cooking for the weekend. Hot ovens and stove tops are great in the winter, and not so great in the summer. Happily, I’m learning a few good recipes that taste great cold. More to come on that next week!

The Recipe: Calcium Power Morning Oatmeal

Vegan Calcium Power Morning Oatmeal

Oatmeal is cheap, blackstrap is cheap, and while chia seeds are expensive, you don't need much to make a difference. This power packed meal provides about 500mg of calcium with peanut butter, and 600mg with almond butter. The other 400mg will come easily if you are eating a whole foods diet.